How to save the faster-expiring miles
How to save the faster-expiring miles
By James Gilden
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
July 29, 2007
Now is the time to gather up all of your frequent-flier mileage program statements and take a good hard look. If you're not vigilant, by the end of the year you could see your hard-earned miles vanish into air thinner than that in which a 747 flies at 35,000 feet.
Some of the biggest U.S. airlines are changing the amount of time you have for frequent-flier mileage accounts to sit dormant. US Airways led the charge last fall when it announced it was changing the expiration for its inactive frequent-flier mileage accounts from 36 to 18 months. Predictably, other carriers have taken to the notion like lemmings to a cliff.
Delta shortly followed but with a 24-month expiration; United and American Airlines have since followed suit, each with an 18-month expiration.
"There were a hodgepodge of policies until 1999, when most major carriers adopted a three-year rule," says Tim Winship, editor and publisher of FrequentFlier.com.
Keeping your miles from expiring only requires some sort of program activity every 18 months (or 24 for Delta).
"There are hundreds of ways to keep your account active," said United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski.
The airlines are making a bid to get excess miles off their balance sheets. United, for example, had approximately 508.8 billion outstanding unused miles at the end of 2006. It estimates that 70.5 billion of those (about 14 percent) will go unused and probably expire under the new policy.
That's enough expiring miles at 25,000 miles per ticket for nearly 3 million free domestic flight awards. Or if each mile is worth 2 cents (using a common measure of the value of miles), about $1.4 billion dollars worth of miles. Just at United.
As of the beginning of 2006, frequent-flier guru Randy Petersen, publisher of the FlyerTalk frequent-flier forum Web site (www.flyer talk.com), estimated there were about 10 trillion miles outstanding in all frequent-flier accounts.
If 14 percent were allowed to expire (a big if), the cumulative loss to consumers would be about $28 billion.
For individual travelers, the loss is much less dramatic. As research for this column, I checked in on one of my "orphan" frequent-flier accounts. Like most good frequent fliers, I concentrate my flying in one program. Mine happens to be United's Mileage Plus. Between it and its Star Alliance partners I have flown 618,287 paid miles at last count. But I have over the years accumulated miles in other programs such as American Airlines' AAdvantage. A check there found 2,000 miles that would soon expire without some sort of activity.
That many miles may be worth only about $40, but heck, 40 bucks is 40 bucks. So I looked at some flights I've taken on AAdvantage program partners in the last 12 months to see if I could qualify for some flight credit and keep my account current. A flight on Iberia Airlines from Spain to London last fall qualified but I couldn't find my boarding pass. A flight on Alaska Airlines to Puerto Vallarta in March 2006 was outside the 12-month time frame.
In the past I have been lazy about providing a frequent-flier number for short flights that were not part of the Star Alliance. With the new expiration policies, I will be more vigilant. That strategy will prove more difficult for some travelers than others.
Lee Van Doren, an IT consultant from Wood- inville, Wash., has more frequent-flier mileage account orphans than Father Flanagan. He travels frequently to Baltimore to visit a client and racks up more than 100,000 miles per year on United, qualifying him for 1K, its highest level of frequent-flier status. But he also has accounts with American, Continental, Delta, US Airways and Alaska Airlines.
"For United ... I don't have to worry about it," he says. "But I am concerned about all these other little miles maybe I have 15 to 20,000 miles in all these little accounts and I'd like to keep them going."
When some miles in his American account were set to expire under the old 36-month rule, he set about trying to get some retroactive credit from a hotel stay, only to learn it had already been credited to his Continental account.
"I can't even keep track of them in a three- year period," he says. "An 18-month period, it's going to be a real challenge."
Getting frequent-flier miles programs' infrequent members to have more transactions is not an insignificant factor in the airlines' decision to cut the expiration date.
"Getting those liabilities off of their books very simply makes their books look better," says Tim Winship, editor and publisher of FrequentFlier.com. "What none of the airlines have owned up to is the effect on the revenue side of the equation.
"These foreshortened mileage expiration periods will inevitably . . . cause people to have more transactions with program partners be those the airlines or their partners, but in either case that ends up being a revenue generator for the airline."
Complaints about the change have been muted, says Winship. Though it may be a minor one to how the programs operate, he sees it as a sign of a continued degradation in their value.
"It's not that hard to earn or redeem a mile," he says. "That's true, at least for those people who are more or less actively engaged in the programs.
"But if you take that sort of blase attitude, eventually you won't have a program left to complain about."
In the meantime, I'm still hunting for my boarding pass from that Iberia flight last year. Maybe I stuck it in my passport.
Some ways to keep from losing those hard earned miles:
- Take a paid flight on the airline or an alliance partner (for example, a United frequent flier who takes a Lufthansa flight would qualify).
- Redeem miles for a flight, upgrade or even a magazine subscription.
- Use a credit card that awards frequent-flier miles. You can "buy a pack of gum for $1" and keep your account active, says United's Urbanski.
- Stay at a hotel that offers miles in the carrier's program. If you usually receive frequent-guest points in the hotel's program, you will have to forfeit them at least for one stay.
- Rent a car and ask to have miles credited to your program (though some car rental agencies will charge an added fee).
By James Gilden
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
July 29, 2007
Now is the time to gather up all of your frequent-flier mileage program statements and take a good hard look. If you're not vigilant, by the end of the year you could see your hard-earned miles vanish into air thinner than that in which a 747 flies at 35,000 feet.
Some of the biggest U.S. airlines are changing the amount of time you have for frequent-flier mileage accounts to sit dormant. US Airways led the charge last fall when it announced it was changing the expiration for its inactive frequent-flier mileage accounts from 36 to 18 months. Predictably, other carriers have taken to the notion like lemmings to a cliff.
Delta shortly followed but with a 24-month expiration; United and American Airlines have since followed suit, each with an 18-month expiration.
"There were a hodgepodge of policies until 1999, when most major carriers adopted a three-year rule," says Tim Winship, editor and publisher of FrequentFlier.com.
Keeping your miles from expiring only requires some sort of program activity every 18 months (or 24 for Delta).
"There are hundreds of ways to keep your account active," said United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski.
The airlines are making a bid to get excess miles off their balance sheets. United, for example, had approximately 508.8 billion outstanding unused miles at the end of 2006. It estimates that 70.5 billion of those (about 14 percent) will go unused and probably expire under the new policy.
That's enough expiring miles at 25,000 miles per ticket for nearly 3 million free domestic flight awards. Or if each mile is worth 2 cents (using a common measure of the value of miles), about $1.4 billion dollars worth of miles. Just at United.
As of the beginning of 2006, frequent-flier guru Randy Petersen, publisher of the FlyerTalk frequent-flier forum Web site (www.flyer talk.com), estimated there were about 10 trillion miles outstanding in all frequent-flier accounts.
If 14 percent were allowed to expire (a big if), the cumulative loss to consumers would be about $28 billion.
For individual travelers, the loss is much less dramatic. As research for this column, I checked in on one of my "orphan" frequent-flier accounts. Like most good frequent fliers, I concentrate my flying in one program. Mine happens to be United's Mileage Plus. Between it and its Star Alliance partners I have flown 618,287 paid miles at last count. But I have over the years accumulated miles in other programs such as American Airlines' AAdvantage. A check there found 2,000 miles that would soon expire without some sort of activity.
That many miles may be worth only about $40, but heck, 40 bucks is 40 bucks. So I looked at some flights I've taken on AAdvantage program partners in the last 12 months to see if I could qualify for some flight credit and keep my account current. A flight on Iberia Airlines from Spain to London last fall qualified but I couldn't find my boarding pass. A flight on Alaska Airlines to Puerto Vallarta in March 2006 was outside the 12-month time frame.
In the past I have been lazy about providing a frequent-flier number for short flights that were not part of the Star Alliance. With the new expiration policies, I will be more vigilant. That strategy will prove more difficult for some travelers than others.
Lee Van Doren, an IT consultant from Wood- inville, Wash., has more frequent-flier mileage account orphans than Father Flanagan. He travels frequently to Baltimore to visit a client and racks up more than 100,000 miles per year on United, qualifying him for 1K, its highest level of frequent-flier status. But he also has accounts with American, Continental, Delta, US Airways and Alaska Airlines.
"For United ... I don't have to worry about it," he says. "But I am concerned about all these other little miles maybe I have 15 to 20,000 miles in all these little accounts and I'd like to keep them going."
When some miles in his American account were set to expire under the old 36-month rule, he set about trying to get some retroactive credit from a hotel stay, only to learn it had already been credited to his Continental account.
"I can't even keep track of them in a three- year period," he says. "An 18-month period, it's going to be a real challenge."
Getting frequent-flier miles programs' infrequent members to have more transactions is not an insignificant factor in the airlines' decision to cut the expiration date.
"Getting those liabilities off of their books very simply makes their books look better," says Tim Winship, editor and publisher of FrequentFlier.com. "What none of the airlines have owned up to is the effect on the revenue side of the equation.
"These foreshortened mileage expiration periods will inevitably . . . cause people to have more transactions with program partners be those the airlines or their partners, but in either case that ends up being a revenue generator for the airline."
Complaints about the change have been muted, says Winship. Though it may be a minor one to how the programs operate, he sees it as a sign of a continued degradation in their value.
"It's not that hard to earn or redeem a mile," he says. "That's true, at least for those people who are more or less actively engaged in the programs.
"But if you take that sort of blase attitude, eventually you won't have a program left to complain about."
In the meantime, I'm still hunting for my boarding pass from that Iberia flight last year. Maybe I stuck it in my passport.
Some ways to keep from losing those hard earned miles:
- Take a paid flight on the airline or an alliance partner (for example, a United frequent flier who takes a Lufthansa flight would qualify).
- Redeem miles for a flight, upgrade or even a magazine subscription.
- Use a credit card that awards frequent-flier miles. You can "buy a pack of gum for $1" and keep your account active, says United's Urbanski.
- Stay at a hotel that offers miles in the carrier's program. If you usually receive frequent-guest points in the hotel's program, you will have to forfeit them at least for one stay.
- Rent a car and ask to have miles credited to your program (though some car rental agencies will charge an added fee).
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 8:07 AM
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